Congressional redistricting could be done in a zip

Like many Marylanders, I am frankly embarrassed by the strange congressional districts just approved by the electorate. I humbly suggest that future redistricting efforts attempt to make more compact districts in which the representatives can better attend to local issues.

For example, my home in rural western Howard County is represented by Rep. Elijah Cummings whose primary office is in downtown Baltimore nearly 30 miles away. And I see that the 3rd Congressional District joins Owings Mills, Annapolis and Montgomery County in a long narrow twisty district. I would not call either of these districts compact.

While I'm sure this redistricting has tepidly met approval from federal judges, the districts are still embarrassing. Since I believe politics should be as local as possible, I recommend that future congressional districts be drawn only from adjacent postal zip codes, none of which are shared with any other district.

Since the average district should have approximately 600,000 people and the more populated zip codes in Maryland have up to 67,000 people, the typical district will contain 15 or more zip codes.